http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THOSE girlish noises on the eastern horizon are the sound
of Saddam Hussein giggling.

Well, why not?

The government in Kuwait,
retrieved from clammy Iraqi
embrace by the Persian Gulf War
a decade ago, invited some of the
principals back for a celebration
yesterday, or at least a
commemoration, and from the
popping of the champagne corks
(or whatever pops at a Muslim
gala) you might have imagined the
Kuwaitis and their American
rescuers won that war.

Secretary of State Colin
Powell, dropping in from his first
tour of the Middle East, made the
ritual pledge that "freedom will live and prosper in this part of
the world" despite everything Saddam Hussein can do. That's
expecting a lot from something as fragile as freedom,
particularly in a grim part of the world where freedom is a
foreigner, grudgingly tolerated.

"Aggression," he said, echoing the earlier President Bush
on that long past day 10 years ago, "will not stand." Then he
joined Mr. Bush and Norman Schwarzkopf, the U.S.
commander in the Persian Gulf War, to lay a wreath at the
American Embassy in remembrance of the 148 Americans
killed in the desert.

Alas, Saddam's aggression does stand, and in Iraq, it is
standing fully upright.

The rest of the world laughed when Saddam portrayed
abject military defeat as his personal triumph. No one laughs
at him now. He is the most important Muslim politician
anywhere, the unrepentant enemy of the United States,
archfoe of the civilized, the intimidator of the brave peace
processors at the United Nations. The Muslims whom those
148 Americans (Christians, mostly) died to protect demand
now that the United States relieve Saddam's pain.

Americans sometimes learn lessons slowly and only with
difficulty. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle
East. If a second marriage is the triumph of hope over
experience, as Dr. Johnson famously observed, ingratitude is
the bastard child of sacrifice. You could ask anyone within
spitting distance of Suez.

Colin Powell heard a chorus of complaint, bluster and
whimper at every stop on his Middle Eastern tour, and was
told over and over that the new American president owes it
to the Arabs in general and the Iraqis in particular to ease the
sanctions imposed by the United Nations in an attempt to
make Saddam keep evil at a minimum.

The sobs and bluster seem to be working. In Damascus,
the nexus of much of the trouble-making in the Middle East,
the general indicated — diplomats never "say" if they can
"indicate" —that he will recommend that President Bush ease
the curbs on civilian goods to Iraq, even civilian goods that
can be easily converted to military use.

The general comes home tonight after meeting with Bashar
Assad, the president of Syria, and Farouk al-Sharaa, the
foreign minister, to discuss the sanctions and — no hooting,
please —Middle East "peace" efforts. Since the general has
banned the use of that thigh-slapper of a term, "peace
process," recognizing the home truth that processed peace is
to peace as Velveeta is to cheese, he probably had to work
at it to keep a straight face in his discussions with the Syrians.

The United States will consult with France, which is
always on the lookout for opportunities to subvert and
obstruct; with Russia, which sees continued trouble in the
region as its path back to pretense if not power; with China,
which has helped build the air bases from which Saddam's
planes threaten American and British aviators, and with
various Arab governments, who cry buckets of tears over the
plight of Iraqi civilians but are nevertheless willing to risk
nuclear disaster at Saddam's hands if that's what it takes to
kill the Jews. Some process. Some peace. A decade hence
somebody else can lay a wreath in remembrance of a fresh
crop of American corpses.

"We want the world to know our quarrel is not with the
people of Iraq," Gen. Powell said in Kuwait, "but with the
regime in Baghdad." True enough. It's Saddam who has the
quarrel with the people of Iraq, and it is Saddam who will
manipulate concessions so that whatever mercy the
good-hearted Americans deliver will be so strained that the
Iraqi people will never see it.

Saddam can't expect to roll George W. Bush in the way
he rolled Bill Clinton, but he won't have to. He kicked out the
United Nations arms inspectors, to perfect his germ-warfare
weapons and his nuclear experiments without being
disturbed. The West, softheaded as usual, contented itself
with mere military victory in 1991, and now there's a new
threat. This is what cannot be left to stand.

Saddam Hussein isn't entitled to much, but so far he's
earned the
giggle.

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